Fallen and Faceless
by ElocinMuse
Summary: Finale speculation. Closing the gates of Hell. "To say they were surrounded was an optimistic view of the plummeting odds, but that was just how the Winchesters liked it. That was when they truly shined. Faceless in a world that never even knew they existed, fighting for a cause that betrayed them more often than it saved them."


**Fallen and Faceless**

_One more monster crawled inside  
But I swear I saw it die_

_And now I'm one of the forgotten_

Red bloomed around him in an arc as Dean cut through the first two demons that rushed him. He felt Sam's shoulder brush his, his brother intercepting any ambush that sprouted from their left. Wielding the demon knife, Sam erased any enemy he stabbed with a purge of glittering brimstone as the blade tore through cartilage and bone. Dean sported an old friend; the serrated obsidian edge sliced through one throat after another, the Purgatory relic making up for its archaicness with its brutal efficiency.

To say they were surrounded was an optimistic view of the plummeting odds, but that was just how the Winchesters liked it.

That was when they truly shined. Faceless in a world that never even knew they existed, fighting for a cause that betrayed them more often than it saved them.

_Honestly, I think the world is gonna end bloody. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't fight. We do have choices. I choose to go down swingin'._

* * *

"_Sir. We have the Winchesters trapped_."

Crowley listened with his phone pressed to his ear, dark eyes glinting in the shadow of evening. Accompanied only by his own twisted darkness that followed at his heels, he asked, "Where are you?"

"_Black Forest_."

"Germany," Crowley mused, weighing the news on his tongue. "Forgot about the hellmouth there. Particularly nasty one. They must need to channel the power of a Gate to fuel the closing ritual. Wait for me before you kill them. I'm on my way."

Crowley snapped his phone shut with a scowl. He straightened his suit coat with more force than necessary, cracking a stress kink out of his neck.

_You can bet that damn angel's with them, too. Unless Rocky and Bullwinkle decided to fly coach. _

_No, _he reminded himself_. That bullet will have done the trick. _

In a blink, he was gone from the damp vacancy of a broken down warehouse and surrounded by woods.

Immediately, the stench of blood and sulfur assaulted his nose. Crowley found himself a statue among a slaughter, staring down critically at the many burnt out husks littering the forest floor. The canopy high above cast the small clearcut into shadows and harsh contrasts. Smoke rose from the singed corpses, some of which were covered copiously in grotesque wounds and spilled blood, while others had their eyes burnt right out of their skulls. Those were wounds Crowley knew all too well the meaning of.

The sudden, blistering smell of ozone had Crowley's hackles standing up and his head rolling to the side in bitter aggravation.

"What's this, now? Kill one of my men for every wrench I've thrown into the sandbox of Team Free Will?"

"You don't have enough demons to kill for that."

It was an all too familiar growl that replied. Crowley saw the shift of light and shadow, watched the angel slip out from behind a large fir. There was blood splattered on his trench, an angel blade gripped loosely at his side. The torchlight left behind by the dozen or so smote demons caught off the holy steel in an almost sinister way.

"That was you on the phone, I presume."

Castiel stared back at him evenly. "An old trick."

"And how's that gut shot treating you?"

"Itches."

Crowley offered an unhappy twist of a smile. "So," he grunted. "Where are those denim wrapped jackasses, if not here?"

Castiel moved forward, circling the King slowly. "That's none of your concern," the angel replied. Castiel quirked an eyebrow. "And yet it's completely your concern… isn't it?"

Crowley tracked his movement with careful indifference. "Lookit you, all smug."

Castiel shook his head. "Satisfied." He stepped over another corpse before coming to a gradual stop. "After all, this is what it's always been leading towards." He gestured with his blade, indicating the two of them. "Hasn't it?"

_My, my. Playing with fire again. You know what I see here? The new God, and the new Devil. _

Crowley's smile spread a little wider, power flaring around him. "I could sick my dogs on you."

"You could," Castiel acknowledged, well aware that he would crush every hellhound just as he had the demons at their feet. "But don't you want to know?"

The forest around them hushed, a silent wind darting through the trees.

Crowley's smirk had an edge to it like a knife, his dark stare melting away into a velvety red. He called on the shadows, on the power of the hellmouth beneath them, feeling the reassuring cold steel of the angel blade he held hidden behind his own back.

_The big lie. The Winchesters still buy it. The good Cas, the righteous Cas. As long as they still believe it, you get to believe it. I know what I am. What are you, Castiel?_

The ground beneath them shook, ancient trees groaning right down to their roots. Castiel's eyes lit up like stars, his shoulders bunching as two large masses at his back unfurled. It wasn't long before his light drowned out the torches completely.

_I'm still an angel. And I will bury you. _

* * *

Sam leapt over a gravestone, twisting in the air to evade a stray machete swipe. He blasted the owner with a face full of rock salt from the shotgun in his right hand, stabbing blindly with his left to cut off the second demon going for his brother. He continued stabbing and shooting as fast as his body would allow.

Dean already had one sawed-off in his hands, the other slung still in the holster across his back.

"Keep moving for the crux!" he shouted over the discharges. He hacked away with the blade from monster land until he got a chance to reload. He felt the heat of the final ritual closing in on them, seeping up from the ground beneath their feet. Not a trial at all, but the key to the whole Closing itself. "I got your back, Sammy! Go!"

_When we were young, I pretty much pulled him from a fire. And ever since then, I've felt responsible for him. Like it's my job to keep him safe. He's my family._

Sam ran.

He shouldered past whatever stood in his way, swallowing ground for the center of the field. Demons cropped up around him, getting either a salt round to the face or a demon knife to the throat. Sam's body ached and protested at the abuse and exertion, but he pressed forward at an impossible speed.

_These Trials are changing me, Dean. _

There.

He could see it.

He could see the site. Three years ago he saw it last, vowing never to lay his eyes on it again, and here he was.

He felt the box's weight, heavier than it should have been, in his pocket. Sam reached for it, ready as ever, and yet he stopped. He looked back.

He saw Dean, shooting, slicing, punching, kicking. Saw him overwhelmed. Even a year in Purgatory couldn't prepare him for the sheer number that outweighed and outmatched him. Dodging between crosses and tombstones, Sam watched his brother as he became cornered.

One year not looking for his brother in Purgatory. One year trying to make it on his own and move on with his life. Countless hours arguing over things that meant nothing when you were about to watch the only person you ever really had to count on die bloody.

No more. Screw the mission.

Digging his boots into the hard mud, Sam tore back in the direction he came.

_You're my brother. And I'd die for you._

Above their heads, at the entrance of the boneyard, a sign read _Stull Cemetery_.

* * *

Light and smoke clashed in a roll of angry thunder.

Crowley lashed out with his power, uprooting the trees around them. His visage had become a mangle of thorns, so unlike the pained poetry Castiel preferred. The angel pressed an advance, hounding the King back with dogged determination. Claws snagged on his wings, cutting and tearing. They were easily shaken off. The gleam of steel that sliced through the air was not as much a surprise as Crowley wanted it to be. Castiel's blade met the stolen one with a clang and a spark that was lost in the battle between light and dark. Smoke blanketed the forest floor like fog, swallowing up their feet.

Angel and demon battled across the barren woods, turning day into night. Only the power of Castiel's grace provided illumination, a single violent star in a swirling nebulous of black and red smoke. He caught Crowley by the collar of his clothing and sent him hurling into an oak, splintering the trunk. He tasted blood when Crowley's rejoinder, the pommel of his blade, tore across his jaw.

Regaining his balance, he snapped his wings once to increase his momentum when he caught the King in a hard tumble that sent them both crashing down a rocky embankment into the alcove beneath. Blades met with ringing ferocity, they tore at flesh and crushed at bone. Trueforms rose and clashed, slamming against each other in brutal war. Castiel cast out his grace in a wide arc, his true voice pummeling the nearby trees and leveling several. Crowley's matching roar spared him much of the heavenly damage, but his flesh was still left blistered and sizzling.

"How much did they ask you to give this time?" the King demanded amid the struggle. "Look at you! I see your grace, your wings—how tainted they are. They're damaged, impure. All those sieges on harrow Hell, angel. They're not even white anymore, they're _black_! What are you even fighting for? Do you even remember?!"

"_I remember_," Castiel grit out, stumbling as the ground cracked and caved beneath him. He growled and cast out his will, Crowley narrowly evading the rotted tree that came sailing at him.

"You're a _decoy_, my fine feathered friend. You're the chewtoy they toss around when they need to make a grand escape. You're useful so long as you're helpful." Crowley laughed wildly against the wind. "Tell you who else they used up and threw to the wolves…"

Lightning split the sky, the torch flames flaring so catastrophically that parts of the forest had now caught fire. Castiel was on him before he could recover, a picture of righteous fury as he beat the demon down bloody, reveling in the tormented pleasure it brought him more than was necessary.

_Meg's dead, Cas. Crowley killed her. _

Gripping Crowley by the lapels of his coat, Castiel drowned him in a molten resonance of light. It scorched through flesh and bone, the King's screams drowned out by the booming quality of a voice turned to pure angelic wrath. "You don't even _speak_ her name!"

It rang out as a death knell against the howling wind and licking flames all around them. Anger drove him, defined him in that moment. Still, the King burned, so nearly rendered a husk, so nearly was it over…

Castiel was torn roughly away as claws and teeth sank deeply into his wings and back. An invisible force dragged him across the wall of flames as he struggled, jaws gripping him like iron shackles. Castiel rose and threw himself hard at the ground, rolling so that the hellhound was shaken loose. He stabbed blindly at the mass and apparated away, near the fire again with his back to the flames so that there would be no more surprises. But he felt the blood soaking down his back, felt the way his grace flickered uncertainly at the abuse done to it. Stubbornly, he ignored its weak protest and hauled himself back to his feet.

Crowley was there to meet him, a gory, grinning mess. "Tsk, tsk, Ducky. Beware of dog." He struck the angel back down under a tidal wave of dark power, hearing the eager growl at his side. Crowley patted at the air with vicious glee, feeling the solid bulk beneath his mangled hand. "Run along, now," he told the beast with a smile. "Daddy's got it from here."

* * *

Stull Cemetery.

Lawrence, Kansas.

Directly above the Cage, where Hell originated, and ultimately was doomed to end.

_I ain't gonna let him die alone. _

Sam tore through the sea of demons, cutting a path back to his brother. "Dean!"

The only reply for a long time was the repetitive firing of Dean's two firearms. "Not yet!" he shouted back. The demons were too spread; he was determined to wait until they were all on top of him. He popped the hinge pin open on one shotgun, ejecting the empty shells. Gunpowder stained his hands black, smoke curling from the double barrels.

But Sam was already at his back, digging the demon bomb out of Dean's belt and hurling it down at the ground.

A wide arc of arcane power fanned out in an explosion of sound, ripping through the mass of possessed bodies. Two thirds of the enemy were immediately reduced to nothing more than a burnt outline of brimstone ash.

Dean's bloodied face was twisted in frustration, but something made him swallow the angry protest that had formed on his lips.

_I'm closing the gates. It's a suicide mission for you. _

_I want to slam Hell shut, too. But I want to survive it. I want to live, and so should you. I see light at the end of this tunnel, and if you come with me, I can take you to it. _

Dean felt the hand grabbing at his shoulder, the insistent pull towards the crux of the cemetery.

"Dean, come on!"

Dean followed.

He watched as Sam took the box out from his pocket, the box branded with the Aquarian star.

The symbol of water, of life, of knowledge and great power.

Even without the key, the box held a magic all its own. No evil ever created could destroy it. Abaddon had sought its contents, having no idea that the box itself was perhaps worth more than the key inside it.

_Listen, I may not be able to carry the burden that comes along with these Trials… but I can carry you._

Together, the Winchesters, Legacies, stood at the center of Stull Cemetery, the origin of Hell itself, and waited. Dean stood guard at Sam's side, shotgun bared and ready. There was worry writ beneath the blood and grime, beneath the scowl he wore like a badge into battle.

"It'll work," Sam assured him under his breath, tension running down his spine. The remainder of the demons closed in, angry and smoking.

"I know."

Though he knew it would, there was no part of him that was glad for it. No part of him that wished, even for just a moment, that they couldn't turn back and find another way. It felt as though a steel band was tightening around his chest as they awaited the inevitable.

Sam saw the way Dean carried this final test, and felt inside his own heart that his brother would not grieve alone.

"You don't have the final key, do you?" a demon sneered at their hesitation. "You don't have anything, and you're going to die here today."

Dean silenced him with a gunshot to the face.

* * *

The Black Forest.

Baden-Württemberg, Germany. A direct point along a geographical unicursal hexagram, connecting it to the Black Sea, to a nation once called Mesopotamia.

Where Lucifer created the first demon.

"Why do you sacrifice so much for those two?"

Crowley's voice washed over him, ice water on his already broken body.

Castiel grit his teeth, pushing himself back up.

_Because Sam is my friend._

_And I am your friend. _

Crowley struck him back down, shaking his head. "You're a tragedy, Castiel. You're Fallen, and you're broken. And I'm gonna gut your little playmates when I'm through with you."

Castiel felt the shattering of his vessel's bones, biting back a yell. He felt the blood running down his face, his blade wrenched out from his grip under another attack. He was losing, badly now. He wired his eyes shut tight, riding out a wave of pain. His grace rippled and protested, needing to break free. Castiel smothered it down, willing it to obey his will, willing it to hold out just a little longer.

Crowley stooped down and hauled him up by the throat, sweeping bloodshot eyes over the wrecked form of his opponent. He smiled at the idyllic parallel, in all its gruesome glory. "You know… this is just how I had your little whore, right before I filleted her like a trout. Almost poetic in a maudlin sort of way, don't you think, Cas?" The angel gave a weak struggle, but Crowley held him still on his knees, towering over him for the first and only time. "Did you know she died for you? Wish she were still around, so I could tell her it was all for nothing." Crowley lifted his blade speculatively in his other hand.

The angel's stare was beaten but defiant. "Not… for nothing."

Crowley snarled down at him. "Stupid angel," he said, allowing the circumstances to sink in like a poison. "I'm the King of Hell."

"That doesn't mean anything anymore."

"Oh, doesn't it?"

In one fluid motion, Crowley brought the angel blade slamming up into Castiel's chest. An explosion of light burst from the killing blow, a shattering sound blasting against the trees surrounding them. A choking torrent of smoke curled around the scene, smothering the light as time slipped off its tenuous thread.

The angel was now a beacon of dying grace, breath ripped out of him, and Crowley smiled evilly in the face of it.

_What are you, Castiel? _

_What exactly are you willing to do?_

White hot pain tore at him from every angle, a worse agony than being ripped apart by a vengeful archangel. Castiel savored his last moments with bittersweet serenity. His replying glare was perhaps even more deviant than before.

_Everything._

The ringing in the air was deafening, shaking the earth to its core.

When Castiel spoke, it was a damaged amalgamation of his vessel's failing vocal chords and his own angelic intonation. "_Micaloz balt piripsol_."

Crowley felt a spear of doubt lance through him, at the utter, prevailing gratification in the burning eyes staring back at him in finality. Inevitably, his gaze fell to the bloody symbol pressing out from the loosened shirt collar under his grip, seeing the outline of its magic through the blinding death throes stuttering before him.

The Aquarian star, cut precisely and deliberately into Castiel's chest. Even through the bloodied white shirt, it was clear as day now.

Castiel's final words resonated around them, mocking him over and over again.

Crowley stared at the angel in dawning horror, all sense of victory draining from his face in recognition of what had been done. "You little shit," he whispered.

No one could have missed the fleeting, triumphant smile that swept over Castiel's lips, barely a twitch of muscle as oblivion descended upon him.

* * *

**- 3 Days Ago -**

"Mee-kah-loh-zod bah-el-tah pee-reh-ee-peh-soh-el," Sam pronounced slowly, the unspoken question hanging in the air.

"_Micaloz balt piripsol_," Kevin affirmed from his seat at the Letters table. "It translates roughly to _Keeper of Heaven_. It references 'the burning ones,' angels closest to God that radiate pure light. They hold the Creator in the highest praise, tasked with the duty of regulating the heavens. Before the Rebellion, they encircled the Throne, said to be borne of an intense fire representing God's love. There's only supposed to be four of them in existence."

Dean shrugged. "Alright, so… what? We need to get one of these heavenly regulators down here to close the gates for us?"

Kevin shook his head, shoulders slumping. "Not exactly." He pointed once more at the tablet. "To seal the gates forever, _the dying flame of a burning one must be obtained, preserved in the crest of infinite life_. Then it mentions something about performing the ritual on some sort of biblical energy grid."

"What does that mean?" asked Sam. "The dying flame?"

Kevin sighed, intuiting the hapless endeavor for the impossibility it would prove to be. "We need the grace of a Seraphim."

Dean slammed his book shut. "Oh, that's great. Where the hell are we supposed to get one of those?"

"How can we even be sure there are any left?" Sam pointed out, in dismal agreement with his brother. "There's no way to know how many survived the Rebellion, much less the Apocalypse."

A defeated silence settled over them for a long time, until the fourth party in the room finally spoke up.

"There's one left."

All eyes turned to Castiel.

* * *

**- Present -**

It hadn't been easy.

Luring Crowley into a fight to distract him. Letting the hellhound tear into his wings. Allowing himself to be beaten down when it would have been so easy to rise up.

Allowing himself to be swayed by those poisonous words as he had so long ago.

Because Crowley had to believe it.

The King didn't need to believe it for long; just long enough.

Crowley's red eyes darted around frantically before they came to rest a final time on the Aquarian symbol glowing from Castiel's chest around the sword buried there. The lines of the infinity mark shone a blinding gold that dwarfed even the eruption of pure, undiluted grace as it broke free of its vessel. It leapt up at the sky, igniting the heavens.

The earth groaned fiercely and shook beneath them, the air becoming hot. The ground fractured and split, steam billowing up.

Castiel set his jaw, feeling his grace writhe in agony as it tore itself apart around the holy steel lodged against his heart. His free hand came up, seizing the hilt in a white-knuckled grip, and he tore it from his chest with raw determination. He gasped out around the crippling pain, drawing on last vestiges of strength.

Castiel, fueled by anger, made sure the demon knew exactly why he was going to die.

"For Meg."

With one last growl of insurgence, he drove the tip of the blade up into Crowley's throat, all the way to the hilt.

The King of Hell roared, brimstone and sulfur spewing from the wound as the two of them were swallowed by smoke and light in a collision of powers and dying knells. A blast of sheer noise knifed through the trees, a geyser of a burning white flame splitting the night in a violent scream.

_You know, I've been here for a very long time. I remember many things. I remember being at a shoreline, watching a little gray fish heave itself up on the beach and an older brother saying, "don't step on that fish, Castiel. Big plans for that fish." And, of course, I remember the most remarkable event—remarkable, because it never came to pass. It was averted by two boys, an old drunk, and a fallen angel. _

_The grand story. And we ripped up the ending. And the rules. And destiny. Leaving nothing but freedom, and choice. _

As nothingness enveloped him for the final time, Castiel felt relief. For a warmth had replaced the pain in the end.

It felt like atonement, it felt like peace.

* * *

Sam looked down in a startled rush when the box grew hot as coals against his flesh. Willing himself not to drop it, he stared, relieved and devastated, to see the Aquarian symbol begin to smolder with power. Within moments, that gentle heat became a furnace of roaring light in his hands, signifying that the ritual was working.

The ritual was working.

Watching the box as it overflowed with grace, linked and branded with the life of the last living Seraph, the brothers stared, a profound weight of sadness settling over their shoulders.

Dean swore, closing his eyes tightly against the sight. He grit his teeth around the angry yell building in his throat, reminding himself that they all knew this was how it was going to end, how it had to end.

_He's, you know, tough for a little nerdy dude with wings. _

"Dean…" Sam looked at his brother, feeling his own throat close up.

Dean fired another salt round into the small horde that remained. "Finish it, Sammy."

Sam obeyed the flat tone, feeling the power in the box and flow of grace as he held it over the crux of Stull Cemetery. Beneath his feet lurked the Cage, a thousand memories of torment locked away in the unseen prison.

"_Kah-nuh-ahm-dahr_."

Energy rippled through him in a mighty rush. Following the familiar crackle of power, Sam nearly bowed in on himself, the veins in his hands flushing white in reply to the ancient authority in the words. The power thrummed all the way up his arms and neck, across his chest beneath his shirt, and into his eyes.

Grimacing in pain, Sam held his ground under the cloying weight, finishing the passage.

"_Nothoa b'shem Aaloh, eametso vnal tareoa gihanoa!"_

_In the name of God, close these gates of Hell._

Large floes of rock exploded up from the mantle of the earth, the awful sound of grinding crags deafening to the ears. Rubble rained down around them and the Gates gave a resistant groan of iron. The atmosphere became a plume of smoke as the demons spread out in front of them were spewed from their bodies.

The Winchesters stood at the center of the sudden storm, the rumbling below them growing louder and louder, the wails and howls of the damned making a grisly harmony with the thunder and wind above their heads.

On the other side of the world, in a forest thrust into nightfall, a man in a trenchcoat lay dead. His limbs were spread in a perfect reflection of the fallen soldier with no name of her own who died months before. Beneath him stretched the massive outline of two wings, seared into the earth with ash and dust and the lingering smell of ozone. Sooty feathers floated down overhead, mired and aimless on the wind. Opposite him was the sulfuric, burnt out husk of Hell's fallen King.

Back in Lawrence, where it all began and all would end, Castiel's grace flared bright beside them in a final surge. The Key the box was meant for—before Legacies, before the Men of Letters, before Man itself was even considered—breathed life into the carvings on its surface.

_Well, this is it. Team Free Will. One ex-blood junkie, one dropout with six bucks to his name, and Mr. Comatose over there. Awesome._

As one, they had become something beyond legend. They became an idea—a righteous maelstrom that no supernatural being could look on without fear. Together, each fallen and faceless in their own way, they'd hurled themselves headlong into the opposition over the course of their lives.

The damned souls beneath and around them wailed, slamming to their knees at the Word personified, Hell itself brought down like pillars of corrupted stone. Blood and death paved the infinite chasms far below and across universes, worlds pausing to take in the sight. A hushed silence—in that hour of abominable upheaval—fell over galaxies and over every dominion. Far below and on ground zero, the Land of Men, a whole new revolutionary war came to a climactic end.

There was a bitter and yet triumphant smile playing across the Winchesters' lips, because it was demons who destroyed everything they'd ever loved. Since the day they were born and to this very moment, demons had been responsible for every unforgiveable thing in their lives. Now, to the relief and satisfaction of the Apocalypses' original vessels, those sons of bitches would never be able to hurt anyone ever again.

There was a final, sonorous roar from beneath their feet.

Something vital and age-old snapped in Hell then, like a band pulled too tight and finally breaking. The air around them rippled, caving in on itself. There was the slamming of something massive being shut, and the world shuddered on its axis. Light and color began to rush back as reality regained its foothold, and there was the impossibly distinct sound of a lock sliding into place.

The damned, far below, gave one last, disembodied roar of defiance, and then the furious screams of Perdition were no more than echoes.

* * *

**- 1 Day Later - **

Sat across from each other in the dingy, roadside diner, Sam and Dean took turns poking at their empty plates, waiting for the food to arrive. They said nothing between them, basking for once in the silence. The everyday sounds they heard were a welcome relief compared to the nightmarish ones neither of them could quite shake from their heads.

Moments later, the waitress came by with their meals: a single hamburger on an otherwise empty plate. "Enjoy your lunch, boys."

They both stared down at their food, neither one willing to interrupt the quiet just yet.

Sam broke it first, scooping the burger off his plate and lifting it to the air. "To Cas," he said softly

Dean rocked back in his seat, staring out the window for a long time. Finally, he brought up his own burger, nodding solemnly at it.

"To Cas."

They stayed together in that diner for the rest of the day, still torn between the overpowering sense of relief and terrible loss.

_We're family. _

* * *

_Nuking Hell—that's how I get out. That's how I go home. I need this to be over._

Seeing his mother alive was like seeing the sun again for the first time in years.

Kevin's face lit up, the storm clearing from his eyes as all doubt left his mind.

"Kevin!"

He laughed as Mrs. Tran leapt off the small porch, dashing right through the sprinklers to get to him. He was a prisoner of her arms in the next moment, and he knew he was home.

* * *

Minding his step, the Landespolizei officer ventured carefully between the trees at the head of his team. Two hours they'd been scouring the forest until a bizarre, alien smell began to permeate his nostrils. His brow creased, and the officer quickened his pace. No one had been able to explain the strange and terrifying phenomenon that shook Baden-Württemberg the night before. People had described it as the night sky being immersed in hellfire.

Breaking into a small clearing, his eyes nearly bugged out of his skull.

Officer Fiete stumbled forward, sliding down the small embankment into the alcove.

"_Hier drüben! Kommen sie schnell!_" he cried, calling out to the other officers over his shoulder. "_Es ist ein körper!_"

He approached the body with trepidation, awe and fear filling him at the sight of what appeared to be massive wings burned into the ground. The dead man's chest was a gory mess—the result of what appeared to be a fatal stab wound.

Fiete squinted hard, stepping gingerly over the still smoldering outline of another body. The smell of sulfur and ozone overwhelmed him. "_Was zum Teufel…?"_ he murmured.

He heard a faint ringing in his ears, the occasional splash of rain wetting his puzzled visage. Staring down at the broken form in the trenchcoat, Fiete waited impatiently for his fellow officers to arrive. An anxious buzz settled into the pit of his stomach when a chill swept through the air.

The ringing in his ears grew louder.

Fiete heard the rustle of clothing and snapped his head back down to look at the man.

The air itself seemed to ripple, becoming thick.

All color left Fiete's face, his heart slamming up into his throat. "_Oh mein Gott_."

_You don't even die right, do you?_

Blue eyes dragged open under the gray sky.

* * *

"_They shall have stars at elbow and foot_," Metatron read aloud, quietly to himself. "_Though they go mad they shall be sane. Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again. Though lovers be lost love shall not. And death shall have no dominion_."

He closed the book with a knowing sort of smile.

_What you brought to His Earth, all the mayhem and murder. Just the raw, wild invention of God's naked apes… it was mind-blowing. But really, it was your storytelling. That is the true flower of free will. When you create stories, you become gods; of tiny, intricate dimensions unto themselves. So many worlds. I have read as much as it is possible for an angel to read, and I haven't caught up._

Metatron looked at the cover of the poetry book, running his hand over the raised letters fondly.

_And Death Shall Have No Dominion_. Dylan Thomas.

_We are the faceless  
__We are the nameless  
__We are the hopeless__  
_

* * *

**Author's Note:** Reviews make the author not want to sic her Golem on you. ;)

Lyrics: "Faceless" by RED


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